


Cratolirion Bognerianum

by Louzeyre



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/M, Gen, Time Travel, lv au week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:42:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23269378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louzeyre/pseuds/Louzeyre
Summary: When Lilly is sixteen, she nearly dies. Years later she finds out close she really came.
Relationships: Lilly Kane & Veronica Mars, Logan Echolls/Lilly Kane, Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Comments: 37
Kudos: 61
Collections: LV AU WEEK 2020





	Cratolirion Bognerianum

**Author's Note:**

> Cratolirion bognerianum is the oldest complete preserved lily fossil ever found.

When Lilly is sixteen, she nearly dies.

She’s driving home from Logan’s house and she was feeling more than a little smug.

Mr. Echolls had taped them having sex.

I mean, really. What kind of idiot tapes himself screwing an underage girl? Apparently, the same kind of idiot that would then leave said underage girl alone in a room with a camera, practically in full view and expects her not to figure out it’s there.

That had been the thing that had really made her see red. Not that he had taped them. Not even that he had tried to get away with doing it without asking. But the fact that he thought she was an even bigger idiot than he was and wouldn’t find out.

So, she’d decided to inflict some instant karmic retribution and take the damn things.

The fact that they would also make her mother’s blood pressure go through the roof was just icing on the cake.

Lilly had known Mr. Echolls would eventually want the tapes back. Again, she’s not stupid. But she was still kind of surprised to see his car behind her.

What was he planning on doing? Ring her doorbell and asking Celeste if she could come out and play? Demand her father make her return his homemade porn?

Clearly Logan had gotten his intelligence from _Lynn’s_ side. And his tendency to forget to use it from his father.

Given the whole, being chased by her enraged lover thing, Lilly might have been a bit distracted. And she definitely ran a red light.

But it was fine.

She was fine.

A few seconds after she had cleared the intersection, though, she heard this horrific crunching noise.

She’d hit her breaks. After she had taken a breath and made sure she really was fine and that her car hadn’t had any part in making that horrible sound she’d looked back to see what the hell had happened.

Mr. Echolls’ convertible was pushed to the side of the intersection smashed into roughly banana shape. A large black SUV had t-boned it. And Mr. Echolls --- well, it’s probably better to just say it was very clear he hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt.

Lilly had been about to pull out her cell phone to call 911 --- really--- when the SUV began to back up. At first, she’d thought that it was trying to get some distance from the damaged car. But he kept backing up. Then, just when she was fairly sure he was doing the running portion of the term hit and run the SUV had come speeding _back_ through the intersection. To crash directly back into Mr. Echolls’ car the car --- _And Mr. Echolls_ again.

Lilly slammed down her foot on the accelerator and got the hell out of there.

****

Lilly broke up with Logan for the last time at his father’s wake.

It wasn’t as heartless as it sounds.

When she had decided to sleep with Logan’s father, Lilly really hadn’t really been thinking about Logan or his mom.

Okay, _maybe_ the fact that Logan had cheated on her had been considered. But only in passing.

But being at Mr. Echolls’ wake. Seeing how destroyed Logan’s mom was. Seeing Logan fussing over her… that made Lilly feel uncomfortable in a way she hadn’t expected.

She’d had to get out of there.

Without really meaning to, she’d ended up in the pool house.

Returning to the scene of the crime or whatever, she guessed.

That was where Logan found her.

“What are you doing out here?”

It was accusatory or anything really. It wasn’t like she was even doing anything suspicious, but that small twisting feeling of something like guilt in her stomach had put her on high alert and she sort of panicked.

She kissed him.

Logan was a great kisser.

Granted, a lot of that greatness was due to her own amazing teaching ability, but that didn’t make it any less true.

He was the kind of kisser that could make her almost forget that he kissed another girl just three weeks ago. Or that they were a few feet away from the bed where she had screwed his dad less than a week ago.

Kissing Logan also reminded her that he could do a few other things with his mouth that would make her forget her name, much less all the less than pleasant feelings swirling around inside her. Maybe even make her forget the fact that she Lilly had just witnessed a murder and a psycho killer might be looking for her.

Lilly had, in fact, been steering them towards that bed so he could _do_ some of those things, when Logan did something that was completely unexpected.

Logan pulled away.

“I can’t do this.”

Lilly was very proud of herself for not rolling her eyes. It was his dad’s wake after all. 

“Did you read my note?” He asked.

Lilly had to think for a second, trying to remember when or where she might have gotten a note. Logan, unfortunately, knew her well enough to realize this was his answer. “Of course, you didn’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I saw you. At the carwash.”

“You _saw_ me at the car wash? What, were you stalking me?”

“No.” He said with just a _little_ too much conviction. “I was going to talk to you. I know that you’re seeing someone else, Lilly.” Logan told her.

He collapsed down onto the bed. “I drove back to Mexico to talk to you.” He did roll his eyes. “Honestly, I’m not sure if I was going to yell at you for treating me like dirt or to beg you to take me back. But then I saw you at the carwash, and this feeling came over me. I realized: you were happy. I was completely miserable but you were happy.”

“We had broken up Logan. Because _you_ cheated on me. You don’t have a right to tell me who to date or what to feel.”

Logan stood up abruptly.

“Like you weren’t looking for an excuse to break-up with me.” He said. Then he deflated somewhat again. He swallowed hard and let out a long breath. 

“You know what, it doesn’t matter.” He straightened up slightly and looked her in the eye. “Maybe it’s because I’ve had a sudden reminder how short life is. Maybe it’s because --- for the first time in my life I think I might _actually_ live long enough to graduate. But I realized something at that car wash Lilly. I love you Lilly. But you don’t love me. Not like that. And I can’t keep doing this.” He said, gesturing between them.

Now, in all honesty Lilly’s first instinct was to tell him exactly what she’d done with his father on the bed they were now both standing next to.

What right did he have to tell her what she felt? Just because he’d seen her smile for five seconds from across a parking lot? But then she realized, she didn’t actually want him to know. And she remembered Lynn’s sitting in the house a few yards away. Finally, she thought of the look on Veronica’s face when she had given Lynn and Logan her condolences. And what Veronica’s face might look at her like if she found out about Mr. Echolls. So, she chose a different tactic.

“You know what Logan. You’re right. I don’t love you.” She said. “In fact, the only reason I got back together with you at the beginning of the school year is because I knew it was the only way I could get Duncan to do the Limo Party at homecoming.”

Then she strutted out.

Because she’s Lilly freaking Kane and she struts. Not flees. Not stomps. Struts.

And she definitely doesn’t cry.

***

When Lilly is seventeen, she realizes that her best friend has a crush on her ex.

For a while, after Mr. Echolls’ death, their little group has broken apart. The girls went one way, the boys another. Gradually, through, as Duncan started dating other people and she and Logan started sleeping with other people, the rift between them all began to heal.

She and Logan would never be a couple again. Veronica and Duncan couldn’t be a couple again. But, slowly, they’d remembered how to be just friends.

Which was good.

Lilly was going to be going off to college soon and she wanted Veronica to have someone better than Caitlin Ford to hang out with.

But Lilly hadn’t expected the corners of their little love quadrangle to start pulling together.

At first, she was kind of mad. Veronica was her best friend and Logan was her ex. There were rules about that sort of thing. But, gradually, Lilly had realized it was sort of perfect.

Veronica could give Logan the lollipop and rainbow sort of romance he so desperately needed and Logan would bring out the passionate wild side of Veronica she was so desperate to tried to hide.

Plus, if anyone was going to benefit from the hours of work Lilly had put into making sure Logan knew how to properly please a woman, it should be Veronica.

So, she gives them a little nudge.

****

Years later, after everything, she still doesn’t regret it.

****

When Lilly is eighteen, she decides to go to Vassar. Mostly because it’s the exact opposite of what anyone expects.

Okay, not the exact opposite. It was still private and expensive and the kind of prestigious where having a billionaire computer genius for a father made up for a lack of extracurriculars. But everyone thought of Lilly as the quintessential California girl and it was back east. And everyone thought Lilly was boy crazy and it was historically a women’s college with a student body that was still more than half female.

Lilly decided to take a basic computer science class because she thought the T.A. would be too in awe of her father to give her a bad grade.

She hadn’t expected to be good at it. She definitely hadn’t expected to actually like it.

Kane Software might have dozens of female employees but as far as her parents were concerned, Duncan was the child through which her father was meant to vicariously relive his youth and create a legacy,while she existed to do the same for her mother. Even after it had turned out that Duncan had absolutely no talent with computers, her father had just turned his attention toward making Duncan President and left Lilly to ballet classes and debutante crap.

Lilly had never been one to go along with what her parents wanted. But for some reason, she also had never considered switching roles. If she were honest, she supposed she had a certain idea about what girls that liked computers were liked and Lilly hadn’t thought of herself as fitting them.

Lilly had learned at a young age that people --- especially men --- were easy to manipulate. But code, machines. With them she had to put in the work to get them to bend to her will.

And she _liked_ it.

When she tells her parents that she’s changing her major to computer science it causes way more of a commotion then when she comes out as bi.

****

When Lilly is 20, she loses one of her best friends and sees another’s world fall apart.

It’s a bad year.

****

When Lilly is twenty-one, she receives a card without a return address.

Inside the card is a note and a key.

The note is in her dad’s handwriting. The key, per the note, is to a safe deposit box back in Neptune.

When she asks her dad about it, he acts like he has no idea what she’s talking about.

That’s not exactly unprecedented, though, so the next time she visits her hometown, she goes to check it out.

Inside the box is a hard drive that is decades ahead of anything she’s seen.

It’s beautiful.

On the drive, is just a giant database made up of paired sets of dates, times and coordinates along with a program that seemed to be meant to make sense of all the numbers and to spit out more.

She doesn’t realize it until a few weeks later, but it’s pretty much the best birthday present ever.

That is when one of the dates pops up, and Lilly decides to see what the hell is going on for herself.

It turns out that what is going on is that there is a giant glowing thing in the middle of the woods.

A giant glowing thing that spits out lizards that of looks an awful lot like very tiny dinosaurs.

****

When Lilly was sixteen, she nearly died.

But she didn’t.

Now she knows why. And how.

Unfortunately, she’s not the only one who knows the how part.

And some of the people who know _really_ don’t like to share. And more than a few _really_ don’t like her.

****

Lilly has lost track of what her real age is when she finds out why.

But she thinks, if she could just have enough time and the right timeline, she might be able to fix it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I would love to know what you think. Good or bad. Really.


End file.
